Over 150 attendees gathered at the inaugural Bay Area Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) Symposium on April 13 in San Francisco. The Symposium featured an array of local and national experts on ICWA providing valuable information to the participants, who included Tribal and non-Tribal attorneys, students, judicial officers, educators, local Tribal community members, service providers, and social workers.
The goals of the symposium were to:
- Build ICWA champions
- Highlight ICWA best practices
- Enhance skills to improve outcomes for Native American families
- Strengthen relationships between Tribes, urban American Indian/Alaska Native communities, courts, county child welfare agencies, and schools of social work
- Provide legal updates
An invocation by Corrina Gould, from the Confederated Villages of Lisjan/Ohlone, opened the day, and Hon. Abby Abinanti, Chief Judge of the Yurok Tribal Court, provided the keynote speech. This was followed by a panel on Historical Trauma and Identity; the afternoon plenary “ICWA Child Removals & Due Process Protections: A Case Example from South Dakota” by Stephen Pevar, Senior Staff Counsel, ACLU's Racial Justice Program, and Adjunct Professor, NYU Law School, who teaches American Indian Law; and a number of afternoon workshops.
Participating organizations were CalSWEC; Bay Area Academy; Casey Family Programs; City and County of San Francisco Family & Children Services; and Title IV-E MSW Programs from California State University, East Bay; California State University, Monterey Bay; San Francisco State University; San Jose State University; and UC Berkeley.
Attendees have requested that the successful Bay Area ICWA Symposium be held annually; the Planning Committee is reviewing this possibility.
Thanks to Vida Castaneda, Senior Analyst, Center for Families, Children & the Courts, Operations and Programs Division, Judicial Council of California, for providing this information.